He flopped over to lie on his back. The mattress swayed beneath his shifting bulk; springs squealed. The back of his hand brushed her bare thigh and quickly withdrew, as if he’d touched something forbidden.
“Sam?”
“Yeah.” Resigned.
“Who is she?”
“A girl, is all.”
Allie was thrown by the simple evasiveness of his answer. He was speaking to her as if she were twelve years old. She didn’t like what was welling up in her but she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t even put a name to it. “Christ, is that what she is, a girl is all? Is that what you’ve got to say, like some goddamned adolescent caught two-timing his steady?”
“I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. But really, that’s all she is to me.”
“Sam, that’s so shabby. So fucking banal.”
“So maybe I’m banal. I’m sorry about that too.”
He was working up anger now, preferring it to guilt. The hell with him. He wasn’t fooling her.
“How long you two been being banal together?” she asked.
“This isn’t an ongoing relationship,” he said. “Something happened one time. Only one. Damn it, Allie, I wish it hadn’t happened. I sure didn’t plan it. Neither did she.”
“God’s plan, huh?” she said bitterly.
“More like the devil’s,” Sam said. “A moment of weakness on my part, and it led to something. I thought that kinda thing only happened to the clowns on soap operas, but I was wrong.”
She said, “I don’t believe things like that just happen, Sam.”
“But they do. Then the people involved regret it but can’t change the past. Please, Allie, try to understand this. Try not to be—”
“Try not to be what?” she interrupted.
“I dunno. Naive, I guess.”
She sat up, and switched on the lamp by the bed. Sam twisted his head away from the light, shielding his eyes, as if he might decompose under the glare like Dracula caught in the sun. Allie knew it was the truth that was making him come apart.
“You
“What do you mean by naive? That I trusted you?”
Now he did roll onto his side to face her, his head resting on his upper arm so that his cheek was scrunched up. His eyes were still narrowed to the light. “No. But I don’t want you to think an accidental affair with another woman means anything important.” He scooted toward her, touched her hip gently with his fingertips, making her suddenly aware and ashamed of her nakedness. She pulled away violently, startling him. “Allie, please!”
Allie kept her distance. “She said on the phone she thinks you’re married. Talks as if you lied to her, led her to believe she was the only one in your life. The way you’ve been lying to me.”
“The point is, it doesn’t matter a gnat’s ass to me what she thinks.”
“Sure, I can believe that.”
“Oh, c’mon, Allie. You’re mad right now, not thinking straight. Not putting this in perspective. And I don’t blame you. But it was a one-time affair of the glands, not the heart. And it’s over, I swear it! It meant no more than a shared dance that can never happen again.”
“Lisa would disagree with you, I bet.”
“Maybe. But so what? I only care what
“No.”
He made a sound almost like a moan. “I don’t know what I can do about that. I only wish I could do
“You’re not denying it, only repeating that it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t like lying to you. Never did. I admitted I slept with Lisa Calhoun. If you need to hear it again, I’ll admit it again. I can’t see why you don’t realize the rest of what I’m saying’s true.”
“I don’t
“Well, yeah, I guess not. Allie?”
She knew his wheedling, little-boy voice. Right now it sickened her. Sam was about to ask her forgiveness. She couldn’t handle that. She reached out an arm and hurriedly switched off the lamp.
“That’s better, Allie.” He’d assumed she wanted to go back to sleep, that their discussion was over at least until morning.
She said, “Get out, Sam.”
“What?”
“Out. Now.”
